Re-Tune following Emissions patch

[wai]

G'day,

Unfortunately, the diesel emissions patch was applied to my Caddy Maxi Life and since then I have had one disaster after another. It started off with me overtaking a couple of B-Doubles near Goulburn when it went into limp mode. I had to make my way over to the emergency lane. I stopped and restarted it and that only lasted another couple of km. This repeated a couple of times more and I worked out that if I kept engine rpm at 1600, it would not threaten to shut down. It took me 4 hours to get back from Goulburn. The dealer looked at it and blamed it on a failed EGR valve. I had the EGR valve replaced and that alone cost a lot (around $1,500), and I am now in a situation where I no longer trust the car.

One option I have found is a Quantum Tune at a cost of $1295 and it also includes an "EGR Solution" which I take as meaning that it effectively never gets called.

Does anyone have any experience with this or any alternatives?

One awkward thing is the vehicle is required overnight as the ECU map us dumped and sent to the UK where it is appropriately patched, and then sent back to be loaded back onto the ECU. Because of the distance to the company that does the tuning here it adds almost $200 to that cost.

I am not necessarily interested in a performance upgrade, but just want a vehicle I can trust. As things stand, it can drop into limp mode at any time and there is no indication to anyone following that there is an issue because brake lights and hazard warning lights are not automatically activated.

I would appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks.

[Greg Roles]

First up you can get a EGR off tune much cheaper, the best price I could think of would be a Bluefin handheld unit out of the UK and ask for EGR off. I'd expect that to be more like $800, but so too I'm not sure it will fix your problem, as any tune can write the function of such things down to almost zero, and turn the warning light off, yet the valve itself will still be moving to some degree, plus I can't understand how the EGR valve could cause limp mode anyway.

You can reduce the EGR down a lot by getting an EGR blanking plate off eBay with a 7-10 mm hole drilled in it, this wil reduce the amount but won't throw an error, although post dieselgate patch I can't promise that, who knows how picky they have now made the EGR system now. I suspect more so!

The EGR flap would be my thoughts, as that playing up, especially if the car is trying to do a DPF burn is a definite limp mode. This is what they probably replaced and are referring to. They tend to gum up on higher mile diesels freom EGR/blowby and they need to be cleaned, or in the very least a can of diesel specific upper intake cleaner from Supercheap put through the car every 20-30 thou. The sheer number of people who have drama's becasue of this is amazing, I still get people writing to me and the answer is almost always - clean out the inlet.

You would be wise to buy a bluetooth dongle and use Torque, OBD Link or any similar app to look for errors on your car. Ideally you want to borrow a Vag Com cable and see if you can find out what the actual problem is / was, but the dealer likely cleared the errors. I'd also suggest you use the app VAG DPF to check the status of your DPF in the exhaust, it might be near to full if you are anywhere beyond 100 thou, but less if you only drive short inner city trips.

My suggestion is to hold fire on tuning it, get a dongle, look for errors, try and loan a Vag Com cable, and go get a can of upper intake cleaner. I swear tell a person a week to do this, and almost always it fixes the problem, at least for the time being. That can will cost you about $40.

Finally any tune at $1295 would want to be top notch, and the extra $200 for distance for a digital product is a utter joke. 95% of companies send their tune overseas, and it's all part of the service!!

[feenix74]

Just for my personal reference, is your Caddy Maxi Life the 1.6l TDI or the 2.0l TDI?

[wai]

Just for my personal reference, is your Caddy Maxi Life the 1.6l TDI or the 2.0l TDI?

It is a 1.6 L TDI250.

[wai]

The $200 is because that is what it will cost in taxi fare me to get from the tuning place to my home, and then from me to collect the car the next day.

Also, it has only done 92,000 km.

What they replaced as listed on the invoice is:

VW03L131512DG

The rest are gaskets and a washer.

They listed the problem as:

Carried out GFF, fault found for EGR circuit insufficient flow.
Carried out tests, found EGR to be leaking from actuator diaphragm.
Removed and replaced EGR.
Refitted all parts.
Carried out cooling system pressure test, all okay.

Unfortunately it is difficult for me to do much as I have a badly damaged leg, making standing and bending over very painful. I have to rely on it being done by a mechanic.

[gldgti]

I don't think you have causality there anyway with regard to your issues, the tune, and the EGR. the limp mode under high load could be caused by a few things, and the EGR is probably not one of them (in my opinion and experience), as the EGR is pretty much shut off under high loads. It seems more likely your problem could be DPF related given the issue you described.

In fact, the symptoms you have described match exactly those that I have seen in 2 seperate friends vehicles - one begine a T5 caravelle with the 125kW 2.5 5 cylinder eninge (with DPF) and the other with a Tiguan 2.0TDI (commonrail TDI). Both of these vehicles have dpf related issues that were causing them to go into limp mode under hard acceleration.

All I'm saying is that you want to be sure about the problem before spending ~1k on something that might not have any effect. Personally, as a rule, I would never reflash an ECU unless the engine was already fault free.

[feenix74]

It is a 1.6 L TDI250.

Ok, thanks. My Caddy Life (1.6l TDI) is coming up on 165,000 km. I am avoiding the voluntary "update" and have not come across the problems that you seem to have. I have noticed that I am getting DPF regens fortnightly (more if I am doing a lot of peak-hour stop-start or short trips) but I try to get a good long highway run in when I can to clear out the DPF as best I can. What diesel do you run? I get the impression that the BP Diesel is the best and then the Caltex Vortex Diesel is second best. They are helpful in keeping the TDIs cleaner and performing better for longer. I stick with the Caltex because we do not have a BP nearby.

Greg - thanks for the pointer on the VAG DPF app, I have downloaded it and will give it a go sometime this weekend to find out the status of my DPF.

[bluey]

Dieselgate: Volkswagen cars lose power after fix | Teknikens Varld

Power and Torque curves before and after. Peak torque seems generally similar but at higher rpm. Peak power similar. Most engines are worse off.

I'm not doing it but concerned about what the class action will end up as - will the court mandate the patch?????

(If mods reading, isn't it better to keep general discussion in diesel thread rather than passat thread?)

[Transporter]

Well, so why are you posting the same at multiple sections?

People should keep the rant in Facebook and on the whirlpool, the main gossip sites.